Joan Holliday

I’ve loved music since I was born. Mom and Dad both sang around the house, and I had three older sisters who introduced me to the joys of the Beatles, the Stones, the Cowsills, the Kinks, Motown, The Monkees and the Hollies, (and peace and love) very early on. Davy Jones was my first boyfriend. We had dates in a cardboard-box car at the bottom of my basement stairs when I was six. He adored me. ;-j

My first ever live show was England Dan and John Ford Coley at the Heart of Illinois State Fair…beautiful acoustic guitars and harmonies live under the stars. I was enamored of live music for life. Queen was next, at the Rosemont Horizon.

I did have a period of rabid Bay City Rollers fandom, which coincided with an obsession with Queen, oddly enough. (I don’t believe in guilty pleasures – if it’s a pleasure, for God’s sake don’t feel guilty about it! What are ya, a puritan?) And I love Queen, and the Pretenders. And the Psychedelic Furs, and the Boomtown Rats, and Al Stewart. And U2, and Marshall Crenshaw and Francis Dunnery and Andy White and Colin Hay. Dylan. Robyn Hitchcock. Van Morrison. Hundreds of others.

I also love my son and daughter, and all my “adopted” kids (their friends, and my friends’ kids). My house. My friends and family. The Midwestern town where I grew up. Reading. Movies. Wine. Cheese. Living. The sun, the sky, the earth. New York and London and Paris and Amsterdam. Northampton. The Valley. Laughter.

So now you know me. Oh yeah – I was an art history/English lit. major in college. And got a job at a radio station. Yeah, go ahead and wonder. I do.